Looks like the the old classic Douglas DC 10 caught your eyes. Hard to mistake looking at the position of the rear engine on the top rudder tail piece. It's the only commercial plane that has the rear engine position like that. This plane you shot might not be a military one. It could be one of the courier company's plane for transporting goods.

Senior Member

It's not the Tristar. The rear engine of a tristar is design and arrange difference from a DC10.
The Tristar's engine back wash does not go straight back like the DC 10 you see in the photo the TS shot. The Tristar has like a "S" shape airflow path with the jet wash coming out by travelling back, curve down and then out of the read of the plane's tail.

New Member

looking at the paint scheme of the shown aircraft, its almost certain that its a U.S. Military Jet rather than a civilian aircraft, therefore a KC-10 Extender which is a variant of the DC-10 designed for in-air refuelling roles is most plausible

Senior Member

looking at the paint scheme of the shown aircraft, its almost certain that its a U.S. Military Jet rather than a civilian aircraft, therefore a KC-10 Extender which is a variant of the DC-10 designed for in-air refuelling roles is most plausible

agreed... carrier aircraft would probably use buddy refueling package for midair refueling... I live on the south coast and see these KC-10s all the time for over 10 yrs... probably longer than that...

The USAF bases most of it's air-refuelling wings in the continental USA with a forward base at RAF Mildenhall, England. There are other wings with KC-10s assigned to them, but they aren't dedicated refuelling wings. One of them is the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing at Al Dhafra AB in the UAE. I don't think the USAF bases any stratotankers here.. perhaps in Japan or South Korea. Because of the war in Iraq right now, and the preceding bombardment of Afghanistan, I would expect most of the USAF's overseas refuelling units to be mainly in Turkey and Uzbekistan. Both these countries were the main origin points for the bombers that raided Kabul post 9/11, then went on to destroy what's left of Saddam's air and ground forces.

redstorm, that kinda explains it. The USN has little need for USAF KC-10s since they have their own air-refuellers in the form of S-3 Vikings and F/A 18s. The C-17, on the other hand, might need KC-10s to piggyback it from AFBs in the continental USA. What are they C-17s here for though?